For some moments this fanciful sylvan chase was kept up in perfect silence; it might have been a woodland nymph pursued by a wandering shepherd.  Masterton presently saw that she was making toward a tiled roof that was now visible as projecting over the presidio wall, and was evidently her goal of refuge.  He redoubled his speed; with skillful audacity and sheer strength of his broad shoulders he broke through a dense ceanothus hedge which Pepita was swiftly skirting, and suddenly appeared between her and her house.

With her first cry, the young girl turned and tried to bury herself in the hedge; but in another stride the circuit preacher was at her side, and caught her panting figure in his arms.

While he had been running he had swiftly formulated what he should do and what he should say to her.  To his simple appeal for her companionship and willing ear he would add a brotherly tenderness, that should invite her trustfulness in him; he would confess his wrong and ask her forgiveness of his abrupt solicitations; he would propose to teach her more hymns, they would practice psalmody together; even this priest, the custodian of her soul, could not object to that; but chiefly he would thank her:  he would tell her how she had pleased him, and this would lead to more serious and thoughtful converse.  All this was in his mind while he ran, was upon his lips as he caught her and for an instant she lapsed, exhausted, in his arms.  But, alas! even in that moment he suddenly drew her toward him, and kissed her as only a lover could!

The wire grass was already yellowing on the Tasajara plains with the dusty decay of the long, dry summer when Dr. Duchesne returned to Tasajara.  He came to see the wife of Deacon Sanderson, who, having for the twelfth time added to the population of the settlement, was not “doing as well” as everybody—­except, possibly, Dr. Duchesne—­expected.  After he had made this hollow-eyed, over-burdened, undernourished woman as comfortable as he could in her rude, neglected surroundings, to change the dreary chronicle of suffering, he turned to the husband, and said, “And what has become of Mr. Masterton, who used to be in your—­vocation?” A long groan came from the deacon.

“Hallo!  I hope he has not had a relapse,” said the doctor, earnestly.  “I thought I’d knocked all that nonsense out of him—­I beg your pardon—­I mean,” he added, hurriedly, “he wrote to me only a few weeks ago that he was picking up his strength again and doing well!”

“In his weak, gross, sinful flesh—­yes, no doubt,” returned the Deacon, scornfully, “and, perhaps, even in a worldly sense, for those who value the vanities of life; but he is lost to us, for all time, and lost to eternal life forever.  Not,” he continued in sanctimonious vindictiveness, “but that I often had my doubts of Brother Masterton’s steadfastness.  He was too much given to imagery and song.”

“But what has he done?” persisted Dr. Duchesne.